Starters: Raymonds in Ridgewood

Many restaurateurs are eager to take a successful establishment and expand to another location.

Raymond's opening in Ridgewood was delayed to set up the space right, a level of care apparent in the menu.

But it took a long time before Raymond Badach and Joanne Ricci, co-founders of Raymond's in Montclair, were convinced that they should open a second spot.

"We always thought we were creating a concept that would translate well at other places," Ricci said, "and that someday we would open another one." But over the years, "nothing seemed right."

Then a friend who is a commercial real estate agent persuaded them to take a ride to Ridgewood, where a former bank sat vacant across from Van Neste Square in the heart of the village.

"And it's beautiful. It's on a corner in the middle of town, with the beautiful park across the street and the clock at the center of town," Ricci said. "And all of a sudden we found the right size place in the right location. … People had always told us, 'You should go to Ridgewood.' We've heard that for years."

But opening the second Raymond's took many months. The seasons changed, the windows remained boarded, and some wondered if Ridgewood's tough zoning laws had delayed the opening.

On the contrary, said Ricci, Ridgewood officials were quite helpful.

"It took a long time to just get the floor plan right, the flow right, the kitchen just right, to translate the feel of Montclair in Ridgewood but make it fresh here," she says. "We took it down to the studs."

Grayling Design, the New York-based group that designed the iconic Manhattan eateries Balthazar and Pastis, among others, collaborated with the owners to create the signature look. "Every material we used has a provenance," said Ricci.

"Joanne and I were very lucky to work with the designers," said Badach. "They are terrific, but we coined the phrase 'obnoxiously obscure'. Everything, all the details – nothing is from Home Depot or the lumberyard."

The mismatched tables and chairs, which add to the vintage feel, are all authentically old. The colorful seltzer bottles that form a wall are antiques.

The same attention to detail goes into the food.

"The quality of our ingredients is the best we can procure," Ricci said. "Everything is fresh, everything is homemade. We put real maple syrup on the tables — it's shipped to us from Massachusetts. Our grains for the pancakes and grits come from mills in Tennessee. Our whole-grain bread is from Eli's— a dense, nutty bread. We grind and blend our own meat for the burgers. We work with Red House Roasters for our own blend of coffee. We make homemade marshmallows for our hot chocolate, which is made with Belgian chocolate."

Not-so-humble eggs

The eggs for the omelets and Benedicts are also special.

"We actually have our own flock of chickens in Sussex County," Ricci said, holding up a photo of the hens.

Even though Ridgewood has many other restaurants, Ricci said she and Badach were not fazed by the competition for customers.

"There are plenty of hungry people in town, and we bring a different experience," she said. "The difference is the package in its entirety: the place, the service, the food itself."

After opening on Dec. 10, the new Raymond's served only breakfast and lunch for more than two months, to make sure the kitchen and wait staffs were properly trained before adding dinner. That debuted in late February, with the lights lowered and candles on the table.

The dinner menu features items that are different from lunch and even different from the Montclair location "in terms of techniques and presentation," said the chef Stefan Bahr.

These include Tuscan kale salad, tossed with pickled cherries, roasted pistachios and "drunken" pecorino cheese; wild mushrooms and grits, which Bahr says is "pumped up with a different variety of mushrooms from D'Artagnan"; and wet-aged, grilled rib-eye steak, served with Raymond's steak sauce and hush puppies.

The menus will change seasonally, the chef said, indicating that in the spring, roasted beet salad is likely to be replaced by an asparagus salad, and braised short ribs stroganoff might be switched with spring lamb.

Will the future bring even more Raymond's? Smiling, Badach acknowledged that "three is a magic number, but this was a very, very ambitious project. We expect it to be successful, but how soon we can go out and reproduce another one of these remains to be seen."

Starters is a first look at recently opened restaurants. It is meant to be a descriptive glimpse, not a critical review. Send suggestions for Starters to sherrill@northjersey.com.

Starters: Raymonds in Ridgewood

Raymond's opening in Ridgewood was delayed to set up the space right, a level of care apparent in the menu.

But it took a long time before Raymond Badach and Joanne Ricci, co-founders of Raymond's in Montclair, were convinced that they should open a second spot.

"We always thought we were creating a concept that would translate well at other places," Ricci said, "and that someday we would open another one." But over the years, "nothing seemed right."

Then a friend who is a commercial real estate agent persuaded them to take a ride to Ridgewood, where a former bank sat vacant across from Van Neste Square in the heart of the village.

"And it's beautiful. It's on a corner in the middle of town, with the beautiful park across the street and the clock at the center of town," Ricci said. "And all of a sudden we found the right size place in the right location. … People had always told us, 'You should go to Ridgewood.' We've heard that for years."

But opening the second Raymond's took many months. The seasons changed, the windows remained boarded, and some wondered if Ridgewood's tough zoning laws had delayed the opening.

On the contrary, said Ricci, Ridgewood officials were quite helpful.

"It took a long time to just get the floor plan right, the flow right, the kitchen just right, to translate the feel of Montclair in Ridgewood but make it fresh here," she says. "We took it down to the studs."

Grayling Design, the New York-based group that designed the iconic Manhattan eateries Balthazar and Pastis, among others, collaborated with the owners to create the signature look. "Every material we used has a provenance," said Ricci.

"Joanne and I were very lucky to work with the designers," said Badach. "They are terrific, but we coined the phrase 'obnoxiously obscure'. Everything, all the details – nothing is from Home Depot or the lumberyard."

The mismatched tables and chairs, which add to the vintage feel, are all authentically old. The colorful seltzer bottles that form a wall are antiques.

The same attention to detail goes into the food.

"The quality of our ingredients is the best we can procure," Ricci said. "Everything is fresh, everything is homemade. We put real maple syrup on the tables — it's shipped to us from Massachusetts. Our grains for the pancakes and grits come from mills in Tennessee. Our whole-grain bread is from Eli's— a dense, nutty bread. We grind and blend our own meat for the burgers. We work with Red House Roasters for our own blend of coffee. We make homemade marshmallows for our hot chocolate, which is made with Belgian chocolate."

Not-so-humble eggs

The eggs for the omelets and Benedicts are also special.

"We actually have our own flock of chickens in Sussex County," Ricci said, holding up a photo of the hens.

Even though Ridgewood has many other restaurants, Ricci said she and Badach were not fazed by the competition for customers.

"There are plenty of hungry people in town, and we bring a different experience," she said. "The difference is the package in its entirety: the place, the service, the food itself."

After opening on Dec. 10, the new Raymond's served only breakfast and lunch for more than two months, to make sure the kitchen and wait staffs were properly trained before adding dinner. That debuted in late February, with the lights lowered and candles on the table.

The dinner menu features items that are different from lunch and even different from the Montclair location "in terms of techniques and presentation," said the chef Stefan Bahr.